Trott fears Ashes may lose significance

London: Jonathan Trott believes the historical Ashes rivalry between England and Australia could lose significance if the two teams continue to play each other often. England will host Australia for five ODIs across four weeks ahead of this summer's Ashes series, and Trott, keeping in mind the already crammed international calendar, has expressed concern that fans could get sick of too much cricket.

"England-Australia is a special tradition and rivalry, and it definitely needs looking after. It mustn't be overplayed or overdone and we all have to be careful about that," said the No. 3 batsman in the London Evening Standard."It could be too much, I think so. You want it to be special. England used to play Australia at home every four years, it was in the books and people had years to look forward to it. Now, they were here two years ago, they're here now and they're here again next summer.

"You don't want people to think: 'I'm not going this year because I know they're here next year'. Or next year, people not coming to the games because they saw England-Australia in 2012."

The 2012 Ashes will be played in July and August, and then Australia will host England for a return series starting November 2013. Trott was of the opinion that the paying public could see that cricket's administrators were looking to cash in financially through a surfeit of England-Australia fixtures.

"We've seen what happened with the domestic Twenty20 competition, when they started throwing in tons of games [there were 16 in the first round in 2010 and 2011], and there was a bit of overkill. It was about right when there were only eight matches in the first round," he said. "People might wonder what the point is, or they might think it's too monotonous. I know this series is happening because there's a triangular series in Australia before the 2015 World Cup, to get used to the conditions. It shows the importance the ECB place on the 2015 World Cup, but it's perhaps a bit strange we're playing each other this often."

Australia will begin their limited-overs tour with the first of five ODIs at Lord's on June 29.